Osprey - General Military - Knight - The Warrior and ... - Brego-weard

BEYOND THE BATTLEFIELD: THE KNIGHT IN MEDIEVAL SOCIETY -•
Whatever the size of the dwelling, the layout seems to have been much the same.
When the manor at Chingford in Essex was granted to Robert Le Moyne by the
Chapter of Westminster Abbey in 1265 it was described in detail:
... a sufficient and handsome hall well ceiled with oak. On the western side is a worthy
bed, on the ground, a stone chimney, a wardrobe and a certain other small chamber;
at the eastern end is a pantry and a buttery. Between the hall and the chapel is a side-
room. There is a decent chapel covered with tiles, a portable altar and a small cross.
In the hall are four tables on trestles. There are likewise a good kitchen well covered
with tiles, with a furnace and ovens, one large the other small for cakes, two tables, and
alongside the kitchen a small house for baking. Also a new granary covered with oak
shingles and a building in which the dairy is contained, though it is divided. Likewise
a chamber suitable for clergyman and an inner chamber. Also a henhouse. These are
within the inner gate.
Likewise outside of that gate are an old house for the servants, a good stable, long
and divided, and to the east of the principal building, beyond the smaller stable, a solar
for the use of the servants. Also a building in which is contained a bed; also two barns,
one for wheat and one for oats. These buildings are enclosed with a moat, a wall, and
a hedge. Also beyond the middle gate is a good barn, and a stable of cows and another
for oxen, these old and ruinous. Also beyond the outer gate is a pigsty.
This was not a castle, indeed it appears little bigger than a modern iarm. It did,
however, have its chapel and hall and was surrounded by a moat and an enclosure
wall with a gatehouse. Even when a nobleman did not reside in a castle the image of
martial power that the castle represented was important and manor houses, like that
at Chingford, which were primarily residences would still sport crenellated walls
and gatehouses that suggested defensive power even if the walls were thin and the
gatehouses were built more as guest houses than as a way of keeping enemies out.
The majority of 'licences to crenellate', permissions bought from the Crown to build
a fortified structure, were granted to minor nobility and knights for buildings that
were never serious fortifications. After all any man with the resources to build a serious
fortress would not need such permission, as the rash of castle building at times of weak
royal government shows. A house, no matter how humble, was of greater standing if
it was topped with the machicolations of a castle wall and fronted by a gate house.
They were symbols of nobility and knighthood.
The lord 's lands and interests stretched out beyond the castle walls. The castle or
manor sat within a carefully structured and managed landscape. Some of this was
purely practical, consisting of the agricultural land of the estate. Other parts were
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